Rabat, Modern Capital and Historic City: a Shared Heritage
Located on the Atlantic coast in the north-west of
Morocco, the site is the product of a fertile exchange between the
Arabo-Muslim past and Western modernism. The inscribed city encompasses
the new town conceived and built under the French Protectorate from 1912
to the 1930s, including royal and administrative areas, residential and
commercial developments and the Jardins d’Essais botanical and pleasure gardens. It also encompasses older parts of the city dating back to the 12thcentury.
The new town is one of the largest and most ambitious modern urban
projects built in Africa in the 20th century and probably the most
complete. The older parts include Hassan Mosque (begun in 1184) and the
Almohad ramparts and gates, the only surviving parts of the project for a
great capital city of the Almohad caliphate as well as remains from the
Moorish, or Andalusian, principality of the 17thcentury.